Perhaps my little problem at the Home Depot yesterday was a blessing in disguise. I went in to Peterson Plumbing here in town and was working on the water heater. They weren't positive they had the short, 40 Gallon, Natural Gas water heater but they thought they might have one. The employee that was going to check asked me a question before he walked to the back about the venting. I said it was all vented and did one of these and out the wall (I made a ninety degree turning motion as I said one of these). He said, "Oh it does one of these" with a smile and a laugh. I said yeah, a 90 and out the wall. Continuing to smile and laugh he looked at the big boss and said "hey, it does one of these". I'm thinking he's mocking me, somehow there is a joke that I am not aware of. Then he tells me it is a direct vent and those units run at least $1000. more than the standard unit. Um, that is not a good thing. Dropping $1500 on a water heater was not my idea of a good time, and oh, there is more. Some other special kit you have to buy to go with it. Well, I had the thought with last nights problems that I could convert over to electric. There was a 220 plug in the room for the dryer but I have a gas dryer so the power is just sitting in there unused. So I began exploring those options. I ended up getting a 50 gallon tank for just over $300. I was pretty pleased with that. Saving $1200 plus by converting to electric was okay with me. I am not excited about the additional cost on my electric bill but I don't think the additional operational costs will come up to $1200 any time soon.
I also decided to convert the oven to gas since I have the extra line and can easily stub out a gas line in the kitchen. Just so happens that I helped my neighbor move out a perfectly good gas oven a couple weeks ago as he upgraded theirs for his wife. There is nothing wrong with the old one. I called to see if he still had it. He does. I asked if he wanted to sell it. He said for me I can have it. Score. I love cooking over gas much more than electric so there you go. What a bargain.
The installation wasn't all that bad. The hardest part was getting the old one out. I had the water shut off to the house, well the main water line in the house was shut off. Somehow water was continuing to flow. I had undone the water connections on the unit and the cold was fine but the hot kept running, which was quite strange. I thought maybe the pipes were just draining and it would stop. Not so. I had to keep working so I was getting drenched by this water running and was trying to get the other unit out. It was a nightmare. The vent was no small task. That direct vent thing is not messing around and had some rod going all the way through the unit. The sheet metal vent was just a covering on the outside. There was a thick metal vent on the inside that tied to the outside cover. It was nuts. I managed to get it out finally, still getting water dumped all over me from the hot line. I finally rigged something up to get the water out of the house using a vacuum extender. It worked. Then I turned and looked at some piping for a water softener. There was no water softener and the lines had a bypass with an open valve. I decided to see if that was the problem. It was. I still don't know how it was as the main line to the house was shut off. Anyway, the water stopped flowing and I was able to work without a water fall.
There was a big hole in the wall of the house that I had to seal up. Inside the house I put in some drywall and did the mud work on it. It looks pretty good. At the same time I removed the wiring to the dryer outlet, removed the outlet itself and closed up that hole in the wall. The water heater gets wired directly. That wasn't all too difficult to do. Fortunately everything came together just fine on my first water heater installation. There were a few tricky steps here or there but ultimately we got it done. The big test came an hour or so later when I turned on the shower and enjoyed some wonderful hot water. Now I'll go to work on stubbing in a gas line for the oven and make that change. Always something to do. I'm still in the middle of all the other projects I mentioned a few nights ago. Fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment